Votive gifts served as a medium of exchange between humans and gods. This small statue of solid bronze was an offering to Apollo, whose broad powers ex-tended from solar illumination to medicine and healing. An incised inscription in Greek, arranged in poetic meter and running up and down the figure's thighs, reads: "Mantiklos dedicated me as a tithe to the Far Shooter, the bearer of the Silver Bow. You, Phoibos [Shining One], give something pleasing in return." Unknown except for this inscription, Mantiklos was probably a member of the local elite, well-off enough to have afforded this costly gift as a means of soliciting divine favor. Judging by where the piece is said to have been found, he probably dedicated it at Thebes, an important center of Apollo's cult.

It remains unresolved whether the male figure, preserved from the knees up and nude except for what might be a belt around his waist (indicated by an incised band), represents the divine recipient or the mortal donor. Opinions rest mainly on the attributes thought once to have been held in the outstretched left hand and the now lost right arm: if Apollo, a bow and arrow; if Mantiklos, a shield and spear, the standard gear of a Greek warrior.

Either way, this bronze statue, which is among the most important works of early Greek sculpture anywhere in the world, embodies a transitional moment when an inherited desire for geometric order merged with a burgeoning interest in more closely reproducing natural forms. A sense of bodily mass and volume, created by the rounded curves of the shoulders, thighs, and chest, helps to relieve the schematic severity of the elongated figure, while the slightly parted legs and the differing positions of the two arms create a sense of motion and alleviate the otherwise insistent symmetry of the composition.

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